On 8/29/2009 8:23:09 PM, John Williams ([email protected]) wrote: > > Or on the other hand, they did do a good job of it and people of your > political stripe are >invested in pretending that they did nothing of any > worth. > > Immense government debt, rapidly increasing with no end in sight, high > unemployment, and the many of the large financial companies that > caused the problems still operating because the government bailed them > out. That does not look like a good job to me. > > Obviously the politicians will argue that unemployment would have been > higher if they had not intervened, but there is no way to prove that > either way. It could have been lower if they had not intervened. No > one can know.
Utter bullshit, and I'm calling you on it. If GM and Chrysler had gone out of business there would have been a wave of unemployment like we have never seen in our lifetime. There would have been no one to pick up all those unemployed in the short to medium term. If Goldman and several other of the troubled financials had gone under, there would have been such a hole in the overnight paper market that the entire economy would have locked up AGAIN, like it did last September only this time it would have been for a significant length of time rather than just 4 hours. > > But two things can be known. Many of the companies at fault would now > be bankrupt if the government had not intervened. And the government > would have spent a lot less and be on the hook for hugely less if > there had been no intervention. Bankrupt like Lehman Bros.? > > The future would look a lot brighter now if government debt were a lot > lower and companies that are known to invest recklessly and take > taxpayer dollars when they screw up were no longer operating. If > Bernanke had achieved that future outlook, then it would be a good > job. John.....you filter the facts too selectively. AFAIC, Bernanke did just good enough to skirt serious consequences in the short term. How this turns out over the next few years remains to be seen. We still have inflationary pressures to worry about and that is serious business. I don't have any particular skills in economics or finance, but I was warning about this crisis coming over 2 years ago. I just listen to financial news for about an hour before work, but it seemed clear that bad times were coming. I see another crisis coming. Here in Houston, in the Texas Medical Center, they are building bio-medical research facilities, and hospitals, and all over this region they are building hospitals and clinics like there is no tomorrow. The clinics are costing just a few millions each, but the hospitals and research buildings are each hundreds of million dollar facilities. There is billions being spent here in just one city/region and concentrated in a short time period. It seems like overkill and a significant portion is government funded (UTHS, UTMB, M D Anderson, Texas Childrens, The Heart Center, St Lukes and several others) From the building where I work I can see a dozen cranes and at home I can see (from my front door) at least 3 hospitals being built. I forsee a major contraction after these facilities open, attracting talent from all over the nation, then stranding these folks when the cash dries up. I really wonder what is going on. Is anyone else seeing medical related construction on this scale in their area? xponent Disaster Lurks Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
